The reigning King of Hell had never imagined he'd develop an online dating addiction.

He'd created the account months ago, as a means of drawing in that Sheriff woman Moose and Squirrel seemed so pitifully attached to. He'd gotten bored one evening and returned to the website just for kicks, merely to entertain himself by making fun of the sorry people who had to stoop to Internet dating just to get some action.

But after observing various couples engage in successful encounters and begin real relationships together, he'd begun to notice a distinct hollowness, a sense of aching vacancy, deep in his core. He'd lay awake at night wondering what exactly had drawn Joan to Travis, what aspect of Michael's profile had prompted Luanne to click "accept" and meet up for a date, how much Jerry and Dave possibly could have had in common to result in an engagement after just three months. It had taken Crowley weeks to admit it to himself, but he craved some sort of connection akin to that of Ida and Raymond, Rachel and Olivia, Ben and Elaine, Ulna and Peter. He didn't want a storybook romance, he didn't want senseless passion, he didn't want one-dimensional infatuation.

But he did want something. He wanted…he wanted to be loved. He deserved to be loved.

And so he'd transitioned from wallowing in loneliness each night to spending hours on end prowling . Hunched over his laptop in the darkness of his office, he'd constantly refresh his profile, pining after the barest of contact from any one of the thousands of people who seemed to interact with every lonely soul save him.

He'd manage to hold himself together most nights, clicking and scrolling until around 2:56 AM without incident; he'd more or less gotten used to the nearly tangible loneliness that surrounded him like a thick cloud, soggy and cold against his skin.

But one night late in November, around the time those bloody annoying Christmas ads would explode across his screen and blare irritating jingles from his speakers every time he refreshed the page, just a few hours on the website had left him weeping into a half-empty bottle of Craig. He couldn't pinpoint where the torrent of emotion had come from, but he'd given up on holding it in, telling himself that even the strongest of blokes needed a good cry every now and again. He refrained from dwelling on the fact that a more virile man wouldn't breakdown at the sight of too many cheerful couples in matching Santa hats and snowman sweaters.

"Hey, Boss, the a few of the guys working C Level are complaining about the HBO subscription—"

Crowley chucked the bottle of Craig across the room as one of his men barged into his office without knocking, the thick glass shattering against the far wall in an explosion of amber liquid.

"Get out!" he shouted, his voice noticeably shaky and strained from his pitiful weeping. The door slammed shut a moment later as his idiotic minion sprinted from the room, and Crowley let out a heavy sob as he collapsed onto his desk with equal parts exhaustion and shame. He was pathetic, absolutely pathetic. And he'd just wasted an entire bottle of his favorite drink in the outburst that he'd hoped might have allowed him to vent some of his emotion.

But alas, he only felt all the more wretched now as he lay slumped over his keyboard, having obliterated the one steady (albeit liquid) source of solace he'd ever had. He did his best not to cry too loudly, as he was decidedly not in the mood to intimidate the demon lackeys he knew would gather on the other side of the door to mock their infantile, weeping King.

Perhaps he'd go out for a quick maiming spree; massacring small Irish villages had always been enough to raise his spirits in the past. He probably didn't have time for a full-scale slaughter—he did still have duties to attend to in the morning, after all—but quickly annihilating a family of four could be just what he needed.

Crowley had finally ceased his bawling and was about to heave himself out of his plush leather armchair when he heard a slightly muffled "ping!" from where the tailored cloth of his sleeve had covered his computer speaker.

He jerked upright in his seat, nearly tumbling to the ground as his swivel chair rolled backwards so fast it rammed into the bookshelf behind his desk. Ignoring the few books that rained down around him, he paid no heed to the pounding pressure on his temples or the way his stomach churned in protest as he awkwardly shuffled back towards his desk as fast as he could without vacating his chair.

Doing his best to pull himself together after that rather embarrassing reaction, Crowley straightened his blazer in a vain attempt to regain a bit of dignity. His stomach did another vaulting leap, and he sternly told himself that the king of hell would not be reduced to a vomiting mess when met with an obstacle as ordinary as alcohol poisoning. He let out a low belch instead, pretending not to be impressed by the slight echo the heavy baritone burp had created.

After a bit more preening and a few more seconds to get himself situated—in other words, blatantly stalling to put off the inevitable—he finally turned his attention to his computer screen. He searched with bleary eyes, fighting against his swimming vision until he finally spotted a small blinking icon with the number "1" hanging over the tab "Messages".

Crowley channeled the entirety of his newfound energy into not getting too excited. He'd already made that mistake once before, upon receiving an impersonal and blatantly automated memo of thanks from the website praising him for his avid involvement and nearly constant presence on the site. And as if that hadn't been humiliating enough, he'd received that message after only two weeks of having an account. But, strangely enough, that stab with a poisoned lance to his pride had not deterred him from frequenting the dating site for another three months.

And now here he was, faced with yet another memo as he desperately tried not to get his hopes up. He knew it was unlikely that the site's automated thank-you notes would find their way to him yet again, but the only other explanation for this message's arrival was entirely out of the question.

He hesitantly scooted a bit closer to the computer, then hovered his mouse over the tab. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and felt a bit like that ridiculous teenaged girl Becky he'd kept an eye on for a while as his heart stuttered in his chest. But the surge of a Craig-flavored hiccup sent a quick shudder through his body that was unexpected and jarring enough to push away his anxiety for just a long enough to prompt action.

"What the hell," he muttered to himself in a miserable and tear-torn voice. He stabbed his index finger down on the mouse and clicked open the message.


Two hundred fifty six words.

No name, no picture, not even a box checked in the section designated "gender". But in just two hundred and fifty six words, Crowley knew he'd made the right choice in not deleting the message without reading it.

He'd initially suspected that perhaps the Winchesters had crafted the short paragraph in a rather roundabout form of attack, or perhaps merely as a particularly cruel prank. But it was now shockingly clear to him that Moose & Co. had not been responsible for this tiny break in the dense clouds that had all but eliminated all sources of light in Crowley's life. A message crafted by the Winchesters would have involved an attempt to lure him in with traits they assumed he would have found enticing. If nothing else, they certainly would have requested a meet-up as a trap or even as a means of public humiliation.

But the unknown author of this note was quite plainly and entirely ordinary. They harbored no desperate hunger for power, no all-consuming need to control, and didn't seem to possess a single ounce of ambition. In other words, they were as far from what one would peg as Crowley's "type" as possible.

And yet there was something about this stranger that Crowley couldn't quite place, something that motivated his eyes to read the message again and again. Despite their total lack of shared interests, Crowley could not ignore the inexplicable need to become….acquaintances would involve too much risk. But he desperately wanted to engage in some sort of companionable interaction with this stranger.

After a few more minutes of re-reading the message, Crowley closed his laptop screen and leaned back in his chair. He stared up into the darkness overhead as his muddled mind attempted to uncover any possible reason for why he'd want to connect with someone so indisputably dull.

He let out an annoyed huff when his brain finally made the connection, and he found that he was entirely unable to push away the realization now that it had planted itself firmly in the forefront of his mind.

It was really quite obvious, but that only made it all the more humiliating to own up to.

He and this stranger both shared the same loneliness. They harbored the same craving for some sort of non-hostile, truly honest interaction with another being. Neither of them had any need for the childish myth of romance, no desire to throw away reason in the vain hope of gaining indisputable proof that happiness does in fact exist.

Crowley of course had plenty of means of entertainment; from popping down and joining in on the best torture on R Level to making deals with the most desperate bunch he'd ever encountered in Somalia, there was really never a dull moment in the life of the King.

That is, the excitement continued as long as he kept moving, as long as he never stopped to think or feel or live. The moment he paused for a breath, the loneliness would come back full-force. And it seemed as if it only increased in severity each time.

He doubted someone so mundane even for a human could ever provide him with the uninterrupted buzz he'd require to keep him from tumbling farther into despair.

But although he hardly knew this painfully uninteresting person, although he's done nothing but push away this loneliness for centuries, Crowley felt as if perhaps one day, in the distant future, he could learn to confide in this fellow solitary soul.

And so he reopened his laptop screen, flexed his fingers, and began to devise a response.

Because, ordinary or not, Crowley was almost certain that he'd somehow stumbled upon someone who'd finally be able to convince him that out of all of earth's inhabitants, a miserable demon who made a hobby of deceit truly does matter.